Hercules

Hercules Monochrome / Hercules Graphics Card

There are 308 games documented on PixelatedArcade supporting Hercules for IBM PC/Compatibles.
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Hercules is part of the category Display Hardware Supported.

Hercules Monochrome, also known as the Hercules Graphics Card (HGC), was introduced in 1984 by Hercules Computer Technology, Inc. The card provided an IBM MDA compatible 80 column text mode along with a 720x348 graphics mode. Additional graphics modes (including 640x300, 720x352, and other similar graphics resolutions) were possible by programming the card's CRTC controller. Due to the competitive price, high quality 80-column text, and high resolution graphics, the Hercules Monochrome card became a popular alternative to IBM's MDA and CGA adapters. There were also TSR's available that would emulate the CGA card (though only in monochrome of course) on the Hercules card. Games with this attribute include a native Hercules mode so they could be run with a Hercules card without a CGA emulator/TSR.

The Hercules card could also be used to drive a second monitor when installed along with another type of graphics such as CGA or VGA. While this feature was most commonly utilized by productivity software, a very small handful of games took advantage of this as well.

The Hercules card featured the following video modes:
resolution colors notes
80x25 Text monochrome Compatible with IBM MDA
720x348 graphics monochrome

Pictures

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Hercules Graphics Card
Hercules Graphics Card Plus
The Hercules Graphics Card Plus was released in 1986 and was fully compatible with the original Hercules graphics card. It offered the additional ability to define custom fonts in the 80-column text mode (a feature Hercules referred to as RAMFONT), a capability not available on most graphics cards at the time since the text mode fonts were hard coded in ROM.

Marketing

Product catalogs, magazines, flyers, or other documentation Hercules has appeared in.
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Platforms
Hercules is available for the following platforms: